Disappearance of Zostera marina

DURING the past three years a very serious reduction in the growth of Zostera marina has taken place on the Atlantic coast of North America. Practically the whole coast-line from New Brunswick to North Carolina is affected and in some areas the reduction amounts to its total disappearance. A mimeographed paper by Dr. Harrison F. Lewis, of the Department of the Interior, Canada, gives an account of the situation up to the autumn of 1932, and a further report by Mr. Clarence Cottam (dated June 1933) prepared for “The Plant Disease Reporter” of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has now been received. The cause of the destruction is not known, but the attack is spoken of as an epidemic (“epiphytotic”).